A ‘donut effect’? Assessing housing transactions during COVID-19 across the Spanish urban–rural hierarchy

Abstract

We assess if a ‘donut effect’ has occurred in Spain during the COVID-19 pandemic. Our results show a synchronized 30% drop in housing purchases during the national lockdown in 2020, followed by a significant increase from 2021 across the rural-urban continuum, including core cities, suburbs, towns and rural areas, exceeding pre-pandemic levels. We thus found no evidence of a ‘donut effect’ in Spain.

Francisco Rowe

Professor of Population Data Science

My research interests include human mobility and migration; economic geography and spatial inequality; geographic data science.